Thursday, June 14, 2012

How Should African-American Writers Discuss the Mob Violence Being Committed by Black Youth?

As WBBM Newsradio’s Bernie Tafoya reports, around 10:30 p.m. Saturday, a 23-year-old man was beaten up on the CTA Red Line near the State-Lake stop Saturday by a group of about six teenagers.

The teens had just stolen the man’s 27-year-old female friend’s iPhone 4S. She had dropped the phone, and a teen had picked it up and taken it for himself.

The man told the teen to give his wife her iPhone back. But they instead began punching him in the face.

The group then fled the train at State and Lake streets, near the Chicago Theatre.

Another woman with the group, from West Chicago, tells the Aurora Beacon-News it was the scariest night of her life

She tells the paper she and her two friends got on the Red Line at the Addison stop after attending the Brad Paisley concert at Wrigley Field. Near downtown, the group of teens got on, and by the time it was over, the man with the group had a broken bone near his eye and broken teeth, and he was bloodied.

My claims about conservatives' dishonesty regarding black criminality, the political uses of such stories to fuel white racial resentment, and the historical context for black on white crime dramas in the white racial imagination remains true.

When I started We Are Respectable Negroes one of the promises I made to myself was to never misrepresent the facts to those who take the time to read what I offer here or elsewhere. I try to be transparent in my assumptions, theories, frameworks, and arguments because intellectual work is political work. I will never make claims that do not hold up to my own high standards of critical thinking.

I have been offered money to do the opposite and have refused. That will never change. I want folks to come to WARN not knowing who I am, and then those who know me in the "real world" to be able to say, "yes, that sounds just like you, it was never a surprise." That means something to me which is hard to articulate.

Fate also teaches lessons randomly. Crom is indeed a trickster. One of the challenges of being a person of color who writes about race and politics, and is invested in the uplift of their people, is that you are cast as a "race man" or "race woman." This can be burdensome. If you have a commitment to truth-telling, these are moments where there is great pressure from all sides.

The dishonest colorblind racist Right is waiting for any moment to call attention to the social ills--real or imagined--of black and brown people. These conservatives are tainted by bigotry and resentment. The worst of them are so sick (that to borrow from Brother Akbar) they will call black genius stupidity, and black greatness, failure. As race men, we do not want to give this low class of white conservatives (and their white supremacist cousins) any additional ammo to use against us when they already have a loaded gun at our heads, and a hanging judge on the payroll.

The liberal racists on the Left hold black people in low regard. They are willing to offer a narrative that personal responsibility, common sense, and good behavior are somehow made anathema to the black and brown poor because of institutions and structures. Yes, macro-level arrangements of power are significant. But, we are not children.

Agency may be truncated; nevertheless it exists. Therefore, it is easy to excuse-make and hide behind sociological theory when you do not have to live next to the brigand classes, and when their fists are not in your face, their boots not on your neck.

So exhausting these matters are:

Just before 10 p.m. Saturday, another teen mob attacked two men – one from Chicago, the other in town from Michigan – in the 500 block of North State Street. One victim was left with a broken jaw, the other suffered a cut lip.

In that case, the suspected muggers were apprehended quickly. They fled, but officers caught up with them on Kinzie Street between State Street and Wabash Avenue. Ten people were arrested.

One adult – 18-year-old Mitchell Coradarrowe, of the 5900 block of South Indiana Avenue – was charged with felony mob action and aggravated battery. Seven others, ages 13 to 16, were charged as juveniles with felony mob action.

In a third incident, a 36-year-old man was attacked by a teen mob as he walked home from work along Dewitt Place near Pearson Street in Streeterville.

Police say the man was robbed and attacked by anywhere from 10 to 20 people. The man was taken to the hospital with a head injury, but he was able to walk on his own after the attack.

Since the attack, the man, a doctor at Northwestern Memorial Hospital, has granted an interview to the Chicago Tribune’s John Kass for a column that ran Wednesday. The doctor told Kass that even though his home is four blocks from the hospital where he works, he will now be taking a cab home.

The doctor is Asian and the assailants African-American, but the victim told Kass he did not believe race was the motivation for the attack. He told Kass, rather, that the group seemed just to be beating people for fun.

Unacceptable.

Members of racialized and marginalized communities often see themselves through the eyes of others. This is one of the challenges that comes with the politics of (black) respectability. How do we remain intellectually, philosophically, morally, and ethically true to ourselves when such principles are often not rewarded or reinforced by the broader society?

I get, and can practice with no small amount of skill, the rhetoric and logic that marshals concepts like community disorganization, limited opportunity structures, the ghetto underclass, social capital, the prison industrial complex, divergences in life worlds, agency, mobility, and opportunity structures, as well as the perils of an urban youthocracy with its local morals.

Consequently, when surveying the media's coverage of crime by black youth in their own communities, and random violence that is being visited by a small subset of urban highway men and highway women upon the public, I understand the macro-level sociological story.

Young people are not risk averse; violent crime is their purview. They do stupid things. There is a lack of proper role-models in many underclass communities. These black and brown youth--like all young people--are impulse driven because their brains are still developing. Unemployment rates are high; there is boredom, American society devalues black youth; they just want validation and attention by any means available.

In total flash mob black youth mob violence culture is one born of a decision rule which suggests that if you leave your pocketbook or wallet out on the kitchen table then you are asking to be robbed. There is no moral culpability because the victim should always protect him or herself. Funny thing, the gangster capitalists who destroyed this country practice the same ethic...but I digress.

A second observation: when an innocent member of Joe Q. Public puts one of these knuckleheads in the ground, grandma always manages to cry and paint the portrait of a saint when she damn well knew they were social parasites.The wages of sin are death. Must we still circle the wagons in order to protect the lowest of our communities? Are we Booker T or Du Bois wondering about the prospects for black life under Jim and Jane Crow, in a world where slavery still existed, but just by another name?

Help me understand. Teach me a thing or two. Is my moment of critical self-reflection misplaced? For those of you who teach, write, and share their thoughts with the public, how do you balance these concerns?

I hold myself accountable. As I have passed 1,000 or so posts here on WARN, and I continue to share with a larger audience what we have created here, I will only continue to raise the bar. When someone asks me about mob violence by black youth and When Blacks Attack: The Right-Wing Medias Race War Fantasies, I need a satisfying answer.

Please, do help a brother out. I am afraid that a good interlocutor could slip under my guard and score a knockout punch on this issue. Practice is the only way to prevent that from happening. Spar with me.

Interesting winding trail of words some important others self serving especially the advice to bloggers rings hollow to me since CD posts under an alias...

With regard to the balance of the narrative I was troubled by his purchase of the flash mob handle to indict black youth and then to retreat to a inference that our community is a reflection of the actions of a very small minority . This willingness on CD's part to paint such a negative brush based upon yet again the criminalization of the community is sad to observe given the legacy of WARNIn closing this long winded confession of CD's reveals to me his fear of stepping away from WARN because he knows he is off his game of course such a decision by CD requires courage like being an author of a blog that does not hide behind a mask called CD...

One other note no one who cares about the community is circling the wagon excusing away the criminal behavior of black people instead activists like me and others can distinguish the behavior of people as not race based but a behavior based upon the reality of a post industrial time where reality not race creates deviant behavior....the flaw of race chasing commentaries force people like CD to chase black folks to validate himself and his paradigm

Most of the people that would ask you those sorts of questions CD are not people that are really interested in your answers.

They are either conservative racists who are already convinced that such incidents prove biological inferiority and the need for segregation if not expulsion or they are liberal racists who think that blacks naturally have poor culture.

To really prove whether there is some unchangeable cultural or biological difference between white and black we would have to run an experiment for I don't know say about 400-500 years in which whites were taught that they were the scum of the earth and conquered, raped, segregated,scattered across the world and so on.

If at the end of that time some of them didn't show some of the pathologies that some of the black population shows, I would cheerfully attest to a difference.

Until that time however, I have often found that such discussions generally devolve very quickly to insults and further claims of superiority/inferiority. Some folks are more polite about this of course but it's the same thing more or less.

I picture my wife, daughter, or son as the victim in one of these attacks. I recall the punishment I inflicted on a man who robbed my father at gunpoint when I was a teenager. I reflect on my current capacity to inflict mass casualties and collective punishment - there is nothing good about what I see.

I picture myself as present or in the vicinity of such an attack - and I picture the personal consequences of producing attacker casualties - there is nothing good about what I see.

I've been doing facilities walk-throughs of schools - and I see the concentrated capital costs inflicted on these facilities by relentless crime and criminality - there is nothing good about what I see.

In a contracting economy, the noxious anti-social parasitism of the untalented tenth is insufferable and must end soon - by any means necessary - because jails as currently configured - are no longer cost effective or sustainable.

Defenders and enablers of this noxious anti-social parasitism are no better than defenders and enablers of racism. Most such defenders and enablers (like anonymous Thrasher) are themselves parasites who have managed to extract resources via racism-chasing - and like Pavlov's dog, can never and will never surrender the teat of ceaselessly continuing to try and do so again.

Bottomline CDV - it is imperative that you inform your positions with the harsh realities/truths of the perpetually contracting economy.

It is imperative that you inform your positions with human (killer ape) ethology.

If you wish to help the untalented tenth - it is imperative that you suggest and exemplify practical solutions to the political and sociological blind alley that three generations have launched themselves down lo these past 40 years.

Pointing at anything outside the squalid and closely scrutinized "community" that the untalented tenth have made for themselves will increasingly fall on deaf ears.

We are in a game of musical chairs on the deck of the Titanic - and you can expect the killer apes to do what killer apes do in such circumstances (unless of course WW-III breaks out with China in which case there may be all decks on hand full employment)

As usual CNu seeks to paint himself as the nobile Black man who will defeat those Black progressives who make excuses for Black deviant behavior...WTF(yawn)

By casting himself in this self rightous role he can of course distance himself from the negroes and colored folks who are not like him..It is a tired excercise of course and only reveals yet again the fiction and cowardly persona of a chatter class person that CNu is...

This I do know my mentor unlike CNu, CD and others who post here is not a coward nor does he run from reality or his community

With regard to the issue of Black crime it is a pedestrian topic that often surfaces during presidential elections and when white folks seek to deflect their shortcomings to the usual suspects Black folks..

Of course the truth is quite diffeent most crime is down all over the nation, most Black criminals are not violent and crminals are white and most victims know their assilant etc..

In closing CD nor CNu are engaged in any noble or tough love excercise by decrying the behavior of criminals such a posture is a common custom in Black venues all of us reject criminal behavior regardless of the race of the offender..

To observe CD and others not hoping to create a new category of Black criminals in the 90s our youth was labeled as "super predators" this saddens me...

BTW I will see Mr. Thrasher tonite and alert him about this backward narrative on WARN..

@Fred c. What is going on with young people in your neck of the woods. Provide some perspective if you could.

@Anon. What are you talking about? There are quite a few qualifiers present if you read properly.

Here is a riddle, I am eponymous. I am not hiding. Also, even writing under a pen name I have gotten more attention than you who offers punches from the shadows and peanut gallery but never manages to land a blow. I do hope you are not Brother Thrasher. He was cool people...although some may disagree. To think he has fallen so low would be sad.

Come on, post-industrial malaise causes knuckleheads to attack innocent people telephones they cannot even afford a plan to use. They sit around with Iphones and Ipads with no internet connection on the bus so they can look like they are "important." Sad. Truly pathetic what our consumerist culture has produced. I can play all day long with the sociological imagination if you would like. There are no complicated answers for foolish criminality.

@Shady. You know I am all in on the pathologies of whiteness. But what can we do in the present about this black foolishness? Any simple answers. We cannot pretend it does not exist. I have seen these street pirates running about; they are street urchins. Nothing new there, but something is very amiss. It needles me.

@Thrasher. you should pen an essay called the untalented tenth. that could be golden.

@Anon2. Jim Jones still has you huh? Again, when a group of these criminal goons jumps on you, do please share your narrative about macro-level crime being down (and that depends on the data, it has actually been shifted to the jails where such events are not included in FBI reports as I understand it) and how white racism is encouraging them to pummel you about the head.

You don't get the point Anon. You can concede all of the arguments about structures, what do you do in the day-to-day for your safety and security? I have made up my mind that if these characters come at me I am likely already going to be put in the hospital; Thus, I am taking a few of them with me. What are you gonna do?

Again for the record...I am not Thrasher and yes by way of discloure I am a part of his youth circle but I speak of him not for him.

With regard to CD's disclaimer about posting under eponymous I am also posting using that excuse and handle...When in Rome!

Now let's address the excuses offered up by CD, CNu et al..

-There sound explanations for urban criminality as well as rurual and suburban criminal behaviors ..It is counter productive o create a new label and category for crime..It provides no value or currency to offer ups new chatter terms for generic criminal behavior which as I have noted across the nation has dropped significantly more importantly the incidents of 'stranger danger is very remote' fact remains there was never a crime wave nor is there a crime wave now ..Again your williness to purchase theis chatter class vogue handle is tragic- We are in a post industrial era such a reality creates extreme behavior as well as unwarranted law enforcement narratives etc..- Black youth as usual are being demonize for adolecent acts which are coded as juvenile delinquency and then as criminals into the CJ system- This deliberate protrayal of Black youth of course is tragically augmented by your chatter class nonsense!!_ Finally with regard to your fictional warrior tale it is unlikely that you or me or anyone who posts on this site wiil be a victim of a personal assualt type crime nor a victime of the national fiction of the Black Flashmob_ I along with millions of Black and white folks and others encounter Black youth 24/7 none of us are carted off to the ER nor do we need to wear a urban bravado face like yours and CNu to warded of those lethal and dangerous negroes and colored folk.

Finally to observe you unwind and cave into the fiction of the chatterclass truly saddens me.. I hope Mr. Thrasher could explain to me how you have become this way..

@Anon. Again, more Thrasher. Learn to stand on your own two feet, you write about him as though you are tattling on me to the principal. Get a grip.

As I said, you can spout your defenses of this mess when they are stomping your behind. Facts are not your friend here. I live in Chicago. I missed some of these attacks downtown in person-not on TV--by a few moments. I also have seen some of these attacks in the planning only to be disrupted by the police as they were about to jump off.

You can talk to your cult group about these facts and report back. What would you do in these moments? Go minister to the wayward youth?

Is this the same anonymous who called me myopic for not embracing ghetto culture as a chracteristic of blackness? As to your point that no one here likely being a victim of these roving mobs of violent black youth, I can tell you, you're wrong. I have personally been called out of my home in the wee hours of the morning to collect a son who happened to wander into the path of one of these mobs and shuffle him to an emergency room. A concussion, broken eye socket and broken nose was welcome considering the damage that might have been caused if one of the youngsters were able to get the gun he beat my son with to fire. My son was returning from trying to earn a few extra bucks by tattooing clients in their homes.

That being said, i don't believe that blacks are anymore prone to violence and mob mentality than any other race of humans. However, other races are not being highlighted and called to the carpet as much as blacks are. Anyone with any cursory knowledge of history knows what whites can do when they feel and have convinced enough "others" that they are justified. The possibilities are endless. So then, it is completely practical to ask, that in light of recognition of what type of people are making themselves heard in this political climate, why we seem to unconsciously keep feeding them fodder? Why many of our youth don't seem to be aware of the polical possibilities they face? Why we simply go on expecting be able to 'explain away' or suddenly be viewed as 'no different' when the campaign to paint us as such is raging on as strong as it ever was pre-civil rights, except more sophisticated?

Anyone with a little sense would re-examine what they were doing if all they were met with were negative consequences. Why should it be any less for a community? Why is it negative or hateful to ask among ourselves what is wrong? What isn't working for us? And, why? Years of activists later and we are very little changed circumstantially, maybe even worse. Maybe it's the message...

You know I am all in on the pathologies of whiteness. But what can we do in the present about this black foolishness? Any simple answers.

The simple answer is to make prison even less "attractive" (and yes I am being sarcastic) than it is now but also stop sending people to prison for non-violent crimes where possible. Prison gets normalized and loses its stigma so many people no longer care about going there. Make prisons something close to the Bastille and save them for the worst of the worst.

Longer term we must work to reindustrialize the US and get people jobs. Jobs solve a variety of problems.

Short of that I dunno. There are some people who need to get off the planet.

Sabrinia co-signed my comments and analysis after she gave us her singular tale about her son which still is not reflective of the community but accurate with regard small percentages of crime in the community

I don't feel so apologetic. Mob violence is NOT a particularly teem or black phenomena. Is it really any worse than this http://youtu.be/R_PHazipJa0

These things happen. It's up to law enforcement handle it. I just wonder in watching these eastern europeans, how many of them will be shot compared to the black teens in the states. Same offenses different responses

In response to your question, Professor, Thai society mirrors the usual social ills, hooliganism, gangsterism, etc. Everything is generally much more gentle though, nothing as severe as in our miserable country.

The only public mob violence seems to come out of the vocational schools, and mostly in Bangkok. These schools are four year institutions that are an alternative to the last three years of high school. They provide a very good education in a wide range of work related skills. Rival schools nurse ongoing feuds. All of the schools get out at the same time, and there are occasional flashes of group violence on or waiting for public transportation. People do get hurt. It's the usual flash of emotion through a group that gets out of hand. It frightens people and makes the news when it happens.

I don't get out much of an evening anymore, through disinclination, but a friend recently told me of something that he saw. A group of young boys, dressed as students, were beating a couple of boys like they really meant it. There was a knife displayed, but not employed. I almost never hear of anything like this, and none of my Thai friends seem to worry much about it.

Incidentally, does anyone have an opinion regarding the relative incivility of Black and Hispanic gangsterish youth?

When once the mob-think violence switch has been thrown, of course there's no talking to the participants. Before that, though, it's possible to talk to those guys. I've found that Black youth are much more accessible in that posture than correspondingly "lower tenth" Hispanic youth are, the Chicano youth in L.A. seem to have a much higher level of permanent anger in them. ("Lower tenth," that's a good one.)

God bless them all, it's hard to be young these days, even in the best of circumstances.

I've been thinking about this all day when I read it and I think I have a comment.

First of all, I must admit that when I hear about stories like this, I experience what I call collective black shame for a few hours to a few days. I'm sure some of you know what it is and how it feels.

Black youth acting out is media take-out. That's a given. And it's these stories that get the most attention as opposed to a young black male going from homeless to Harvard. The liberal media and conservative pundits treat these mob attacks like an invasion of a swarm of killer bees out to sting anyone within their crosshairs. Thus, the fear of young black men and women becomes legitimized, policies which include curfews and cut backs are made, juvenile and prison facilities get fatter, and poor black communities become more and more disenfranchised.

The question is always why, why are young black people acting out like this? And the answers point to poverty, lack of activities, poor education systems, psychological trauma, etc.

The responses are always going to be color aroused ranging from the usual epithets to the old race war proclamation. We all know why.

Need I go on to how if this were white youth acting out, it would've been seen dramatically different as witnessed by last year's Vancouver riots or violent response to the Penn State scandal?

Finally, the public will treat this as a "black problem" and not a social problem restricting the conversation to the black community while the rest of society goes on its merry way.

Like I said in the last post about mob violence this country expects our black youth to be violent and doomed to fail at life. So, if society, including black communities expect this of our youth, why should any of us be surprised or disappointed? This is what this nation wants, and this is what the nation gets.

So, if it wants to stop the Birth of the Nation attacks against innocent people, it must damn well better come up with better ways to help them instead of hurt them. This includes everyone from the parents, the schools, the churches, the businesses, the law, the politicians, and everyday folks. Period.

@Anon. Your multiple anon personas is a great shtick. Conan O'Brien is here in Chicago this week, I wish you could have found a way to perform with him.

Re:socially constructed crime explain how those very real blows being rained down on your head are "social constructions." please. the white man is making these brigands assault innocent people. we got to do better.

@Brotha. That is some good stuff and thorough. Let's assume white society, and society at large doesn't give a damn about these young brigands. And are unlikely to at any point in the future-why should they?

What can black people do to deal with this problem? Is this cohort a write off, lost already, surplus personal to we warehoused in jail? I keep asking because as much as I did stupid stuff as a kid and teen it never occurred to me to hurt people for fun, to attack innocents, and to steal and beat people for sport.

Is this babies having babies plus environmental racism and a cold callous culture plus enabling that creates this menace? these black youth thug CHUDS?

I get "CHUD," that was a great few years there for way-out Sci-Fi, along with "Q," and "The Stuff."

Coincidentally the vocational students made the papers here today. Two separate incidents: in the first, a fight on a bus led to several people getting shot, with a home made gun no less. Two of the victims were shot fatally (one a student and one an innocent female bystander going home from work). In the second incident, sixteen of the students were arrested after a giant brawl at a bus stop that put four students in the hospital.

What to do about it? Here the talk is of closing down the schools that the offenders attend, on the theory that if they cannot control their students they don't deserve to stay open. Also talk of reviving a program that has been used in the past of turning the offending students over to the army for special "boot camp" style reformation.

I know that this Thai stuff seems off point, but I was asked to provide it. Besides, it does tend to show that young people around the world are pretty revved up these days, and liable to go off. White boys in America are a little crazy too, although they seem much more likely to go after homosexuals than minorities.

In America, it's the older crowd gunning for minorities. How about that kid in Milwaukee? I'm ashamed to say that I don't even remember his name, and it doesn't seem to be making a big splash. Maybe it's too common now and the poor victims have become faceless.

You asked, " Let's assume white society, and society at large doesn't give a damn about these young brigands. And are unlikely to at any point in the future-why should they?"

They don't think it's a priority because they don't quite see black people in general as humans or worthy of love or respect, the same kind of love and respect given to white and light skin, or so it seems. I've reached that conclusion based on their sentiments on intraracial AND interracial crime and violence.

You also asked, "What can black people do to deal with this problem?"

I have no kids of my own, but I think children need to be taught the truth about this society and how it treats people of color. Collectively, I think we need to stop using the old "Village" proverb in speeches and actually use it. Plus, you have to take into account that some parents are more immature than the kids they raise.

I dunno. There's no real answer to such a complex situation.

"Is this cohort a write off, lost already, surplus personal to we warehoused in jail?"

Prisons and jails are also called correction facilities. Evidently, they don't really do corrections if recidivism is high among certain offenders. Also, those offenders will return back to the environment that molded them in the first place.

I keep asking because as much as I did stupid stuff as a kid and teen it never occurred to me to hurt people for fun, to attack innocents, and to steal and beat people for sport.

Me either.

Not everyone's the same. I don't think all of the participants in these attacks are doing it for fun. With the economy still in shambles and with materialism stronger than ever, those kids are desperate to get what they want AND need. Some of those young people could pawn that stuff to get money for food or whatever.

I'm not excusing them for their fuckery, but some of youth live in conditions where they don't live but survive.

"Is this babies having babies plus environmental racism and a cold callous culture plus enabling that creates this menace?"

That could definitely be a recipe for disaster. The youth is the reflection of a society.

Ain't nothin' to be said for it, Anon. Underlying all of it is the premise of intrinsic black (underclass) depravity. Racial/class prejudice. It is a shame that scholars can't articulate the social origins.

By the way, CD, we are not the same Anons. I wish I didn't have to post anonymously, but under the circumstances I have no choice. I'm the one that posted about toddler criminals. It deserves at least as much attention as this topic.

What can black people do to deal with this problem? Is this cohort a write off, lost already, surplus personal to we warehoused in jail? I keep asking because as much as I did stupid stuff as a kid and teen it never occurred to me to hurt people for fun, to attack innocents, and to steal and beat people for sport.

Bullets are more expensive now than back in the day when I used to refer to the 9mm P+P Hydroshock as the $.27 solution, but in comparative terms still quite cheap.

What will inevitably happen if the irresponsible untalented tenth spawning cannibalistic humanoid underground dwellers - doesn't get its spawn in check - is that death squads will be dispatched to do so.

CDV - don't you find it interesting that the sympathetic have zero solutions to offer, though they articulate their sympathy quite well.

The identified, i.e., the die-hard dedicated racism-chasers have no solutions to offer, and instead respond with defensive ad hominem rhetoric in response to your having had the audacity to even broach the subject.

The hardened are the only ones with an unpleasant and highly cost effective solution to offer.

Ni-nis are an insufferable burden on a contracting economy for which there are no longer any resources or much sympathy left to offer.

History shows all across the Americas (Latin America for real) that in prolonged economic contractions - that death squads have been routinely trotted out to dispense with ni-nis, most importantly including ni-nis who were not committing crimes of violence, but who were just an eyesore.

Is it only me who witnessed young and old, white, college educated, underemployed/unemployed getting a taste of what's coming in last year's Occupy protests?

Let the Hon.Bro.Preznit.Double-O get re-elected and the extreme hardline will go into effect quick, fast, and in a hurry under his second term in office.

With Double-O at the helm, just as has been proven with his bloody African campaigns with Africom - the ad hominem charge of racism is rendered utterly ineffectual.

Musical chairs on the deck of the titanic requires that provisions be made to protect the women and the children.

In that context, uncouth, destructive, violent ni-nis are CUH-LEARLY expendable - hell - the CHUD's that spawned them didn't invest a plugged nickle in their upbringing and training?!?!?!?!

Why-n-a-phuk should I or anyone else be expected to squander even the smallest modicum of resources to shore up somebody else's unwanted?

Hmm?!?!?!

So look here anonymous captain save-a-hoe - if you're so intent on saving the self-destructing while taking a bunch of innocent folks with them untalented tenth then by all means, knock yourself out. But do it on your own dime and with your own resources.

I proposed the most cost effective and results oriented solution I can identify for a problem that I didn't create, haven't contributed to, and about the outcome of which I don't sincerely care anymore.

Oh, and I'm thoroughly inured to the labels "genocidal" and "malthusian" - and genuinely don't give a dayyum about those either, since I have no aims at running for high elective office.

@Fred. Those stories are extremely pertinent. I am trying to get a sense of what is going on globally in this time of economic contraction. Young people are acting the fool everywhere--and their old brethren are soon to follow. I reiterate that despite some people's fear of discussing this black mob reality, I never claimed it was unique. I approach from a point of concern and worry about a community of which I am a member and am concerned about.

Are the parents of those knuckleheads ashamed at all? Are they being trotted out for condemnation?

@Brotha. The parents, the community, and those who enable and excuse make need to be publicly shamed. Not that it would work.

@Anon1. Got you. I misread the ip's. There is a fun game here where 1 anon is pretending to channel multiple voices like a virtual ventriloquist dummy so I wanted to call attention to it.

Social scientists know the score. Many will say one thing in private and do the opposite in their own work though. There are very few who choose to study the ghetto underclass, make sense of their cultural logic, and then live next to them. From my small slice of reality I have seen folks who valorize, defend, and excuse make for bad behavior as an "adaptive" strategy and then hate on the working class and other folks who live next door to the nonsense.

@Anons...So you need gang hood credentials to talk about improving black communities. Also, to want safe homes, communities, neighborhoods, and to be secure in your person is "elitist." How far we have fallen as a people. I discuss internalized white supremacy often: those low standards are proof of its depths.

For what it is worth I do know gang members, have done work with them, and have--and you may not believe it--had some of my own adventures on these streets. It is easy to come up with silly rules for entry into this conversation when the rubric is one must be sufficiently "ghetto" to participate. Pathetic.

@Cnu. You know I can't cosign murder squads. But, the bigger claim that the State, and a growing cohort of citizens, is becoming less tolerant of this mess is the truth. Out in LA, Latino men formed block watch patrols to get the gangbangers and other undesirables out of their neighborhoods. There was some violence as needed.

Black men used to have that type of grit. How come we can't get organized and put an end to this ign't element?

Black men used to have that type of grit. How come we can't get organized and put an end to this ign't element?

Magne shoot..., I tried to get the local chapters of 100 Black Men, NBUF, and even the NOI to sit down and talk about handling some of this business old school. You would've thought I'd asked these men to sleep nekkid in a locked cage with Fleece Johnson!

"not my problem!!!!" is the very common refrain - and I truly believe that that's the bottom line. There are literally half-a-dozen, full-time professional "gang intervention" program men, i.e., activists who've pitched and sold some or another "program" to a public agency with two nickles to rub together and an MBE/WBE bogie to hit which doesn't require them to be particularly selective.

Just to be clear. The small but obviously nonzero level of Black-on-white crime has been blown all out of proportion, partly because most of my esteemed isochromes are living in a fucking movie most of the time, partly for other reasons.

@Anon. You do need to relax. I took your comment seriously. I have bumped it up so that others can contribute. That is a complement in my book. Are you afraid that your suggestion that black folks who want safety and security are somehow inauthentic or "elitist" cannot survive critical engagement?

BTW what part of your insecure ass did you pull out this(Are you afraid that your suggestion that black folks who want safety and security are somehow inauthentic or "elitist" cannot survive critical engagement?) false inference??

Step away from your pc get some fresh air nothing in my posts have remotely argued that blacks folks who want safety and security are elitist etc..

I called you a chatter class elitist/boogie for playing the role of a noble negro as you rolled out this flawed narrative.

It is you that cannot handle a counter and fact filled narrative with regard to crime and Black youth. It is you that is salivating being a self designated heroic conduit of the myth of Black Flashmob violence

You should have the integrity to acknowledge the shallow nature if your narrative yet instead you wage some weak ass deflective excuses.

I offer zero retreat or apology to your backward narrative if clearly warranted the replies you assigned to me.Nothing you have posted in your excuse making has measure up to mine and others criticism of your flawed narrative.

@Anon. whichever anon this is. so you can't offer a rebuttal/explanation/context for your or some anon's words which you defend?

Got you. Very intellectually rigorous and sharp of you.

No one has offered a substantive critique. There has been lots of posturing and grumbling but no cogent engagement with my concerns about black youth. Funny thing, some anon even recycled some of my observations in my original essay on this issue.

So of course, I grant all of those "contexts" for the meme. But again, no one, save for one or two, are willing to engage with this troubling problem.

See Thrasher wax and wane. Thrasher love to complain. Thrasher love to hear himself talk, but hate to explain.Trained to love outwardly and hate within. Desire what he can't have, give away what he can. Thrasher so superstitious, but claim to know God. And he lives a simple life, think it's so hard. Thrasher love being another mans' judge and jury. Thrasher love to be late. Thrasher hate to be hurried. Thrasher procrastinate until it's time to worry. That's why when Thrasher get back to the corner he love to throw flurries.

I know this conversation spun off in one direction, but I want to offer a point that comes directly from the Autobiography of Malcolm X, which is now more that 40 years old. Malcolm observed that a country that was born in violence does not have the capacity to ever be anything but violent.

Maybe that is how we have to begin to analyze the current state of affairs. You cannot admire the Powell doctrine of warfare on one hand (when a nation is engaging in war, every resource and tool should be used to achieve decisive force against the enemy, minimizing US casualties and ending the conflict quickly by forcing the weaker force to capitulate), then shriek in horror when it is applied at a micro level by bands of people who feel justified in whatever action is taken. After all, who gives one county the right to pick a fight with the next.

I guess what I'm saying is that unless the country can shift away from its basic militaristic nature, it is folly to expect its society to behave differently. I get sick of hearing people use the euphemism "serve" to describe the work soldiers do, when the terms that should be applied are "fight" and "kill." It would be a hell of a thing to hear someone see a soldier in the airport and say, "thank you for going overseas and killing those bastards."

I am not afraid of anyone, but I can't whip two or three or 10 youth by myself. As a matter of fact, simply thinking I could whip one just because I don't like what he is doing is presumptuous on my part.

The bottom line to my rant is this: the violent foundation of this nation has produced this inevitable result, so unless we can destroy it and create a non-violent foundation, you won't solve this problem.

I have to say that I am just not surprised by young people acting foolish. I think in general youth and youthful angst is a ticking time bomb.

I was a bad kid. I did stupid shit all the time (and I got caught for it). I even did some stupid shit in Chicago once and really got in some trouble).

Lucky for me, I didn't live in Chicago, I was just visiting. I lived in a small rural town, so if anybody (myself included) did some REAL stupid shit (and it happened) it MIGHT get talked about in the local paper (that nobody read, but everybody bought). People would find out one way or another through word of mouth.

Listen, youth is a loaded gun. Anonymity (that comes with the city) is a powder keg. Really. All these white conservatives probably got into fights with their neighbors kids at some point, and yes people did get hurt (sometimes horribly). This shit just happens. Black, Brown, Yellow, White. I don't think there's an epidemic. I do think punishment is deserved, but not one that is collective

When people ask me about violent Muslims, what I always think is, that's really none of my business. People are violent; it is not at all surprising that some of them happen to be Muslim.

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Who is Chauncey DeVega?

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